poppies -- an exitlude

fuzzyhead –
it looks like you just woke up,
griping, stripping up
through the layered slumber,
exiting like a baby.

you nod, bend,
spine of grace, the lipless smile,
the cold afterthoughts,
skinny girl –
you disinherit these antiques

shed them like
rough drafts.
charm us all with your niceties,
quaintness; underneath
you are all labyrinths and pipes.

crabby,
but penitent.
lined and steady
as a suffragette,
you smile a slow smile to yourself,

savored and complex.
the papery, godless blossoms around your green neck
split like old hearts
and spring carelessly leaves behind
its little
red
suicide notes

and you show us your teeth.

Kylan wrote:fuzzyhead –
it looks like you just woke up,
griping, stripping up
through the layered slumber,
exiting like a baby.

This stanza. I adore it. I think I'd prefer bedhead to fuzzyhead, if only because the latter isn't common idiom where I hail from, but the third and fourth lines particularly are all love. Although - did you mean gripping or griping? I secretly wish it were gripping because I'm kind of on an internal rhyme spree right now and that is so close and yet so far. Plus it makes a little more sense to me? But perhaps not.

Also, the verb exiting - I don't think it needs to be something prettier, because the whole is pretty enough on its own, but it certainly could be. I dunno, I suppose I was expecting something like surfacing. Uh. Subjectivity. It is my forte.

you nod, bend,
spine of grace, the lipless smile,
the cold afterthoughts,
skinny girl –
you disinherit these antiques

I kind of want 'skinny girl' to be 'being the skinny girl' almost because it's so much clumsier than the rest; it's an intentional list and it's a good list, but a little variety in the adjective-noun structure would still be nice.

Also, coming back to this: smile smile smiiile. Maybe change to grin? The repetition didn't quite flow and I liked the smile a slow smile line just how it is so I'd vote for this to be altered instead if poetry were a democracy. Which it isn't. Anyway.

shed them like
rough drafts.

OM NOM NOM NOM

charm us all with your niceties,
quaintness; underneath
you are all labyrinths and pipes.

The repetition of 'all' bothers me. And so does the fact that this is reads like an order, disconcerting amongst all the description. A connection to the last stanza would be nice - specifically, charm the facts away, or charm the old names, etc., etc.

crabby,
but penitent.
lined and steady
as a suffragette,
you smile a slow smile to yourself,

LIKEWISE OM NOM NOM hahaha can you tell that I'm running out of things to say. Quickly.

savored and complex.
the papery, godless blossoms around your green neck
split like old hearts
and spring carelessly leaves behind
its little
red
suicide notes

and you show us your teeth.

Oh, that ending. <3

Rereading, it's hard for me to judge whether this is about a girl like a poppy or a poppy like a girl; I was leaning towards girl like a poppy, mostly because of the list of, er, components? that she apparently is, but by the end I'm leaning towards poppy like a girl.

CONFUSING SMILE MENTION IS CONFUSING.

But your ambiguity -- or at least the failure of comprehension this elicits in me, whatever works - is so narrow and precise that it's beautiful in and of itself.

Hey Kylan. I happen to be your biggest fan. Bet you didn't know that. Now, here's what I thought.

This is like something I'd read for an exam on poetry. It's nothing short of brilliant. Your eye for detail is unwinking and you command it with a voice beyond your years. Bravo. I was initally unsure of the beginning, but after a few reads- which the poem needed, I grew to really like it.

If I hadn't already read the title and realized it was addressing flowers, I would have thought this first stanza was speaking to a woman. You've personified the flower amazingly, something that reminds me almost of Frost. I can't explain it, I might be the personal tone you have, like you've known the subject forever. It was striking enough to keep me reading.

fuzzyhead –

it looks like you just woke up,

griping, stripping up
through the layered slumber,

exiting like a baby.

'It looks like you just woke up' is the line that got it for me. Just...great. The caesura is very effective too. I hate it when people just use them for show. It's almost, I don't know, reminded me of the top of a flower and then the body of it. Does that make sense? And the way the structure is quite wavy and fluid makes me think of breezes shaking a flower.

the lipless smile,

What an astute comment. I adored it. Like it's a greeting you know well.

you disinherit these antiques


shed them like

rough drafts.

charm us all with your niceties,

quaintness; underneath

you are all labyrinths and pipes.

This is a good examination of what a flower really is. Because, on the surface, it's just a flower, who's purpose is to charm and shine, to please people. Like a pretty girl is seen sometimes. The complexities underneath are rarely contemplated by men, and when they are, they are rarely plundered correctly. It's a perception I've never seen written like this before. It simply blows me away.

lined and steady

as a suffragette,

you smile a slow smile to yourself,

I liked the 'as a suffragette' line. It seems to present a hardened, defiant side to the poppy.

And the best:

its little

red

suicide notes

Petals like suicide notes. Amazing. The way you spun the line slowly out was a good technique to show slow falling. It worked very well.

I struggled with the last line. Although I believe it should be there, I couldn't picture a flower having teeth- although, I know you weren't strictly talking about a poppy, it simply verged on the human side of the examination too much. I would suggest- a futile thing, I know, but still- perhaps saying

and show us your thorns.

Okay, I know it's corny and you've probably recoiled in disgust- but it's just a suggestion.

Anyway, top marks for this stunning piece.